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Resurrected in 1867 from a publisher’s storeroom cupboard, the score for Schubert’s 1823 incidental music to “Rosamunde” was “black with the undisturbed dust of nearly half a century.”
Music lovers are blessedly fortunate that Schubert’s wonderful music for “Rosamunde” was saved from eternal oblivion, while the “wretched,” “tedious,” “impossible” play by Baroness von Chézy for which it was written remains permanently lost. Daniel Barenboim conducts the Berlin Philharmonic in three excerpts: an overture, one of the three entr’actes, and some ballet music.

Johannes Brahms’s String Quartet No. 2 is presented by the Melos Quartet, with Gérard Caussé playing the second viola part. When he sent the manuscript to his publisher in 1890, Brahms wrote: “With this letter you can bid farewell to my music—because it is certainly time to leave off . . .” But there is no cloudy foreboding in the score, and the composer would live another seven years, composing all the while. See if you can keep your feet from dancing to the fourth movement, marked Vivace ma non troppo presto!